Number of pregnant women over thirty has increased

MORE than half of all the babies born in England and Wales last year were to women aged at least 30, official figures show.

PUBLISHED: 19:59, Thu, Oct 16, 2014

Middle-aged mother outnumber teens on the maternity wards [GETTY]

And the average age of first time mothers was 28.3 years in 2013, compared with 28.1 years in 2012.

Even fathers are getting older; two-thirds of dads were aged 30 and over in 2013, according to the Office for National Statistics.

The age at which women are starting their families has increased by four years since the 1970s and the proportion (51 per cent) of babies with older mums is expected to continue to grow as more women establish their careers before having children.

Earlier this year, the ONS also revealed that middle-aged mothers now outnumber their teenage counterparts on maternity wards.

In England and Wales last year there were 29,158 babies born to women aged 40 and over, compared to 29,136 children born to those under 20.

The average age of mothers has been increasing since 1975, with increasing numbers of women delaying childbearing to later ages

A Spokesman

There are now four and a half times as many children born to women over 40 compared with 1982, when there were just 6,519 births recorded in this category.

A spokesman for the ONS said: ‘The average age of mothers has been increasing since 1975, with increasing numbers of women delaying childbearing to later ages.

“This may be due to a number of factors such as increased participation in higher education, increased female participation in the labour force, the increasing importance of a career, the rising opportunity costs of childbearing, labour market uncertainty, housing factors and instability of partnerships.”

Marriage remains the most common family setting for births despite the steady fall in the percentage of births registered to married couples since the 1960s.

In 2013 just over half of births occurred within marriage or civil partnership (53 per cent) compared with 59 per cent in 2003 and 93 per cent in 1963.